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The Grammar and Arithmetic of the Cosmos

The civilizations that grew around the Mediterranean in the early Middle Ages had as one of their basic shared doctrines the idea that physical reality is ultimately made of letters, or rather letter-numbers, hence that the world is a book, an harmonic and meaningful composition.

The lecturer will explore how this idea is related to Hermes and his half-sisters the Muses, how language and boundaries, wit and skill, magic and music, creativity and the crafts are related to a set of elusive alphanumeric elements.

This will touch on the Platonic and Abrahamic view of God as the Great Artisan, and of the world as his design and tour de force.

Tutor biography

Dr Juan Acevedo

Dr. Juan Acevedo studied Classics and Biblical Hebrew in his native Venezuela, where he is a published poet and essayist. His lifelong interest in the language of the birds, and years of experience as a typesetter came to fruition in a doctoral thesis for the Warburg Institute, ‘The Idea of the Letter-Elements (Stoicheia) in Grammar and Cosmology: From Ancient Roots to Medieval Systems’. Juan has worked for many years as director of the Matheson Trust for Comparative Religion.